Heat engines are commonly found in today's cars, trucks, boats and industrial equipment. A difficulty with conventional heat engines is that heat energy generated from the combustion process in heat engines may be wasted; much of the heat energy remains in the exhaust gases.
Rotary vane engines may generally be used to convert moving air into useable power. Conventional rotary vane engines include a number of vanes radially extending from a central rotor. As air is circulated through a rotary vane engine, the vanes are effected by the air and therefore turn the central rotor, which may be used for generating power and the like.
Some rotary vane engine systems have been used in combination or in conjunction with fuel-based heat engines. In such systems, the rotary vane engine is part of the main engine, and would for example require fuel injection and subsequent combustion to occur between the vanes inside the rotary vane engine. As the fuel is combusted, the vanes are effected by air expansion to rotate the central rotor to generate the desired power. In such systems, since fuel is combusted, the exhaust gases must be released from the rotary vane engine as the gases are no longer “clean”.